For months these bickering brigands were posturing as if they were desperately hammering out aid for the citizenry. Utter garbage. Ted Cruz accurately points out this is a typical budget bill that has the relief bill spot-welded to it in order to justify the wasteful payouts. The two bills had been connected so the House voted to avoid the normal 72 hour period to vet the content. This was done in order to pass this like the fecal matter through the proverbial goose.
There is so much unneeded and wasted handout in this fiasco of a rescue that you will ask for the riots that were tearing apart Portland for months to be unleashed inside the beltway. This relief bill should have consisted of a single page — a dollar amount, and a sum delivered. Done.
The first problem arrives with the fact this became described as the “Omnibus Relief Bill,” as if it were a Stephen King anthology…though be sure, there are horrors to be found. The second problem is that this was such a monumental spend that it required over 5,500 pages to detail the graft. The bill was so pork-laden it literally could not be carried, but had to be carted into the rotunda.
Some have used rudimentary addition to say the paltry $600 checks we are looking at being sent out amounts to only $200 billion of the $900 billion bill. There are other assists in this however; $325 billion is aimed at small business relief, and another $125 billion is paid out for unemployment benefits but, as one economist points out, this is likely to barely make it to the end of the vaccine distribution window.
In total these payouts amount to roughly $600 billion, but the bill is still 50% larger — where is the rest of this payout going? Looking through the bill itself all that can be said is — Prepare to be enraged.
For starters, the politicians saw fit to include not only illegal immigrants in the payouts this time around but also their family members. They also made this payout retro-active, so those who had been excluded in the first relief package will receive that payment as well. This translates to non-citizens becoming eligible for a $1,800 payment.
Much has already been said about the billions being paid out to foreign countries, a baffling concept Bonchie covered yesterday, for a relief package claimed to aid Americans. Can anyone explain, for example, with Americans out of work and businesses closing why we are doling out over $3 billion to Israel? Off the top of their head can they detail what the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act does, or why it was justified to drop $1.4 billion on this gauzy program?
No, no they cannot. But you get to the teeth grinding aspect of this bill in just the opening segments. Page after page details all of the various governmental offices and agencies which are being taken care of in the spending.
You always thought the armed forces had a separate funding source apart from federal budgets, yet somehow this ‘’relief bill’’ sees a crap-ton of military spending taking place. In section 8072 we see $2 billion went to the Air Force to buy more missiles, the Navy sees $4 billion coming its way for weaponry, and Space Force, for some reason, saw a $2 billion increase.
Recall all of the outrage that came out when it was discovered that the first Covid Relief bill included $25 million going to The Kennedy Center for the Arts? It was said the money would help its staff, who were promptly laid off after the check cleared. Well, the politicians certainly learned their lesson after that debacle — this time around they paid out more to the currently closed facility, $40 million. Also getting checks are The Woodrow Wilson Center ($14 million), The National Art Gallery ($154 million), and the National Art and Humanities Museum ($167 million).
You may be wondering how you’ll pay for heating in January, but be assured The Smithsonian Institute is covered. That already funded museum is getting another $1 billion in this package. Maybe they are building a new Indiana Jones-style storage warehouse to preserve all the 5,000 page spending bills.
We are suffering, but they certainly saw fit to take care of themselves first.
The EPA is getting near $35 million. The IRS is getting $225 million for its ‘’business systems’’. (You try getting a deduction for that kind of hazy expense and see what happens.) We just completed the 2020 Census, but in Sec. 113 of this ‘’emergency’’ bill aimed at the citizens it shovels $200 million for The Census Bureau to upgrade their computers, which will become outmoded well before the next census.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration gets over $1.5 billion for new equipment, because apparently their old equipment was affected by Covid. And while the politicians were toiling over cutting a $600 check for us they also saw fit to refurbish some federal courthouses. The one in Connecticut is getting $95 million in ‘’relief’’ funds, and one in Tennessee will receive $135 million. Because of relief, you see.
Looking through the fog of federal departments which are getting funneled fortunes is a practice in masochism. Not only are there ungodly amounts showered on these teat-suckling agencies, often you cannot even wrap your head around what these parasites do, let alone why they should be assured of their salaries, while you are forced to stay home.
There is a rule in the corporate world that matches the numerology of fractions; just like the more digits there are the smaller the total becomes (compare 1, to 1/1,746 ) also goes that the longer a person’s title the less significant their job actually is. The CEO is the big kahuna, while the Assistant to the Vice President of Marketing Demographic Outreach and Statistics is just the intern who photocopies sales pamphlets. In like fashion, with government offices the longer the name of an agency the more nebulous and less vital is work being done, if any actually is accomplished.
This bill is littered with such offices and jobs getting doused by the cash spigot. They paid themselves handsomely to create this tower of legislation – over $9.6 billion goes to The Office of Budget and Program Analysis.
The wonks who no one is sure what they are sure making off well. The Assistant Secretary of Civil Rights draws over $900,000 here, as their office gets an additional $23 million. The Undersecretary for Research, Education, and Economics gets a bump of over $800,000, and same for the Undersecretary of Marketing and Regulatory Programs, and Undersecretary for Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services. Seriously.
No one is sure what The Commission on the Social Status of Black Men and Boys does, but certainly it would be racist to not give them another $500,000. $21 million is going towards preserving the statues and monuments from the civil rights movement that Black Lives Matter protesters did not tear down.
Section 771 sees $5 billion going to a brand new sewer system project. Sec. 781 has another new program established, helping farmers with renewables, to the tune of $10 billion. A Navajo Irrigation Project is getting $128 million. They created new forms of spending in an emergency bill.
We suppose with Joe Biden threatening to eliminate oil and gas it was necessary to shoehorn in $750,000 million for Fossil Energy Research and Development now, before it gets banned. There is also an incentive program to help people buy electric cars, as $5 million is dropped on the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program.
The Ashanti Alert Network is not even 2 years old, and yet this newly established portion of the Justice Department is given $1 million more today.
The animals are assumed to have been suffering under the pandemic. There is $115 million going towards the wild horse and burro program. Read that again — wild horses are getting over 100 million in EMERGENCY RELIEF money. Also, since most restaurants are shuttered and those opened see scant people who can afford seafood, it seems odd the Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Effort is getting $65 million. The lack of being eaten should be enough to replenish them, but the fish got their checks anyway.